


nothing we could judge

by green_postit



Category: Inception (2010), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:19:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_postit/pseuds/green_postit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A semi-character study of Eames and Sherlock in university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese version available [here](http://selenesun.livejournal.com/19461.html) by selenesun!

He's the son of the two most highly praised psychologists in all of Europe.

It's expected of him to continue the family business and inherit their affluent client list—the dukes and duchesses, the Princess of Spain and her lover, the handful of businessmen and women that have kept the silver spoon in Eames's mouth highly polished.

It's expected of him to play polo and rugby with William and Harry on the weekends and attend Madame Couiotte's etiquette classes to learn how to be a proper gentleman. He takes ten years of stiff, dull ballroom dancing and skived off as often as he can to play football with the blokes he'd bum fags off of in the park—shows up to recital practices with split lips and skinned knees and makes all the pretty birds squeal in horror when he flashes a bloody grin.

He spends the first ten years of his life acting as bratty and insufferable as he can, stomps and throw wobblies when his mother informs him his poor attitude is perfectly reasonable considering where he is in his psychosexual development. His father firmly ignores the nightmares that keep him shaking and screaming by explaining dream theory. 

It's hard—Eames realizes early on in his life—to maintain a rebellious attitude when his parents will excuse away his actions and cite Freud and Jung and Vygotsky as the instigators.

It doesn't stop him from trying, though.

\--

His parents went to Cambridge, so Eames's name is practically printed on the acceptance letter long before he even applied.

He decides to read psychology and follows the family tradition, partly because he can't be bothered to look through the other fields of study, but mostly because he can't be bothered to look through the other fields of study.

A week after his eighteenth birthday, he finds himself in a hollowed out version of his childhood room. All his clothing is neatly folded into two suitcases, all his possessions in a single, tightly packed box. Eames looks at the accumulation of his life and nearly laughs at how pathetic and immaterial it all is. 

He buys a mystery novel at the train station and leaves it on the seat when the conductor announces his stop. It wasn't a particularly good book and he already knows the butler did it.

\--

The pretty girl at Student Services hands him a thick brochure packed with clubs and mixers and his class schedule. He has an ID badge that grants him access to Peterhouse—the same residency his father was given—and carries his box up the three flights of stairs to room 33.

There's a vending machine that only sells three brands of cigarettes and two brands of English toffee by the communal bathrooms. His room is at the end of the hall near the emergency stairs. 

His roommate is already there.

Eames places his box on the edge of his bed, brushes the dust on his slacks, and extends his hand to the boy perched perfectly on his bed reading a thick chemistry book. He has slanted eyes and a mop of curly brown hair. The covers haven't even dented under his weight.

"Jonathan Eames," he introduces pleasantly. 

"I know who you are." Comes the curt reply. Gray eyes zip around Eames's body, over his rumpled shirt and scuffed shoes. The man sighs dramatically before returning to his textbook, blatantly ignores Eames's outstretched hand. "Sherlock Holmes."

Eames tightens his jaw, drops his hand and squeezes his fingers. "Like chem, do ya?"

Sherlock makes a face that very clearly says Eames's questions—no, very presence—are offending him.

"With deductive reasoning such as yours, one can only hope you've enrolled in a _soft_ science," Sherlock's voice drips condescension. There's a pause as his eyes zip around Eames's frame again. "Ahh, yes, _psychology_."

Eames straightens his back, turns his gaze heavily upon Sherlock. By the look on Sherlock's long face, he thinks he's got Eames figured out like a bug pinned under a microscope. 

Two can play this game, and Eames has been trained by the best.

Sherlock's wearing a perfectly pressed, if a tad formal, suit, yet his collar is popped high, his eyes alarmingly cold. Eames runs Sherlock's biting words and contemptuous tone through the filters in his brain, the thousands of diagnoses he's intimately familiar with, hundreds of hundreds of psychologists shouting their theorems and conclusions. 

It's not the first time Eames has run into a narcissist—not even the first time this week—but the very brief, very lasting impression Sherlock has left on him takes narcissistic personality disorder to a whole other realm. Eames has never met a genuine misanthrope before, though. He remembers reading how Aristotle described a misanthropist as a man who considers himself a god amongst the beasts. Eames knows better, knows Sherlock is just a feral pup with words shaped like poisonous claws.

There's cold Chinese takeaway that's barely been picked at, and thirteen cigarette filters in the crystal ashtray on Sherlock's bedside table. He's clearly been here at least overnight, yet the room is as empty as if they'd both just arrived. 

Sherlock has no personal items in the room—no photographs or trinkets, total detachment to his family. Eames can smell his own, knows it's not a father issue—and notes his apparent dislike for socialization, the arrogant messiness, the lack of appetite and obvious addiction.

Eames laughs to himself—is certain he could write an entire dissertation on Sherlock Holmes and never have to leave his room.

"Exactly how long have you resented your brother?" Eames finally replies crisply. He watches the ripple in Sherlock's spine with a satisfied, smug smirk.

Sherlock glowers before slamming his book shut.

Three years of this? Eames is honestly looking forward to it.

\--

The night before the first day of class, students from King's College throw a party called a Tight and Bright. The women arrive in scandalously skimpy outfits that leave Eames's impressive imagination running circles around itself all night, and the men are decked out in obnoxiously loud hues of pink and yellow and neon orange.

Eames arrives in a gaudy, lime and pink patterned paisley shirt, and by the end of the night he has a silky purple top wrapped around his neck like a scarf, which he slipped off a girl named Lauren. It's been three pints since he cared about where his shirt was, and he cares even less when Lauren starts shimmying in his lap. Lauren doesn't seem to mind that he's spilling rum all over the top he'd never let her put back on if he had his way. 

She apparently studies economics and kisses Eames before she even knows his name, steals his cigarettes and leaves Eames hard and in desperate need of a smoke. She shouts something about supply and demand before she springs off his lap—right out of his numb fingers like vapor—and disappears into the mass of thrashing bodies.

He stays at the party until campus security chases everyone back to their respective colleges, and when Eames drunkenly falls into his bed, Sherlock is still awake, still flipping through the chemistry textbook he's been reading since Eames arrived.

"You're still awake, luv?" Eames laughs into his pillow, drunk and a little cloudy from the pills he crushed up and dropped into his drink. His skin is boiling hot but his fingers and toes are freezing cold, his tongue thick in his mouth. 

"You smell like the back end of a horse," Sherlock complains, wrinkles his nose in disgust. He's on his tenth cigarette of the day, an impressive feat considering the nicotine patch plastered on his arm.

Eames's throat is scratchy from the booze but he's been craving the burn of a good fag, knows Sherlock smokes an expensive brand imported from France. He sloppily smiles, stretches his arms above his head before making his way to Sherlock's bed and plucking the cigarette right from his lips.

He savors the look of flustered outrage on Sherlock's face when he inhales—the kick of the nicotine like a burst of adrenaline through his blood. He moans and Sherlock schools his face into a tidy, haughty glare.

"You're insufferable," Sherlock snaps, lights another cigarette even though it's four in the morning.

"And you," Eames inhales sharply, near swallows the smoke, "are a fucking _wanker_."

Sherlock looks as if he's about to retaliate, but Eames pinches the cigarette between his fingers before he stumbles back one step and passes out on the floor.

\--

He isn't sure why, but Eames expected his classes to be a bit more intellectually stimulating and challenging then they are.

He has to take introductory courses as if he's some simpleminded hack who hadn't received Rollo May's _Psychology and the Human Dilemma_ as a tenth birthday present from his mother. 

After the first week of classes, he schedules an appointment with his Director of Studies and spends an hour outlining the many, many ways in which his current schedule offends him. When he walks back to his room, he’s enrolled in all the advances courses and licks his lips in anticipation of rubbing minds with the post-grads completing their masters and doctorates. 

Sherlock is supposed to be in the labs till eleven, but the room is a smoky haze when Eames turns the knob. Sherlock's at his desk, quickly glances at him before he says, "You've changed schedules."

Eames really is impressed with Sherlock's uncanny deductive reasoning. 

"I see your mother's called," he volleys back and watches as Sherlock squeezes his pen—never a pencil—tighter in his grip.

They could probably be something great together.

If only they didn't loathe each other.

\--

He's eating lemon jelly when Stefania Wozniak finds him.

She's from Poland and has honey-blonde hair and pale skin and the most beautiful eyes Eames has ever seen. Ten hours prior, he'd had her slipping and sliding against the shower tiles in her bathroom, her nails clawing the back of his neck, her heels crossed and digging into his lower spine.

She'd looked amazing naked and slippery, was vocal and commanding and knew exactly where she wanted Eames's hands and mouth and nails. They'd been like two cripples dancing, cut from the same cloth: mummy a psychologist, daddy a philosopher. Stefania grew up with psychological and existential scars across her psyche—lived her life by the Tao of Dean and Monroe—planned on leaving behind the most beautiful corpse this side of London.

She'd smoked after sex, stroked the chaffed, pink lines across her belly from Eames's nails. She likes the bite of pain, likes causing it even more. Eames is convinced the gauges she'd dug out of him will never seal properly, that he'll bear her marks for the rest of his life.

In the post-coital glow of some truly spectacular fucking, Eames nuzzled her belly and nipped at her hip, and candidly told her she had a death drive that would put most bipolar patients to shame. 

Stefania had laughed, lifted her leg to hook around his shoulder and squirmed until his mouth was even with her cunt. 

"There's a reason Freud mentioned it in _Beyond the Pleasure Principal_ ," she'd stated, arching into his mouth, fingers curling in his hair. He'd felt the ash of the cigarette fall on his neck and even the minor burn hadn't been enough to pull him away from how incredible she'd tasted on his tongue.

They debate Thanatos and Eros and the push toward destruction instead of creation while Eames eats her out like a starving man. He argued for sex as creation as he sucked on her clit and swallowed her bursts of wetness, and she reminded him sex was more destructive in a postmodern society as she bucked into his face and squeezed her thighs tightly around his ears.

Now, Stefania walks right toward him, swishes her hips in her hiked skirt, straddles Eames and licks the taste of artificial lemon from his mouth. When Eames slides his hand up her thigh, she presses closer and makes it apparent she isn't wearing any knickers. She bites his lip to get him to open his mouth and pinches a bruise she left when his fingers slide along her smooth pelvis.

If she weren't using him so blatantly, Eames thinks he could very well fall in love with a girl like her.

"Are you coming back to bed with me, darling?" She licks her lips and the remains of the gloss Eames knows is smeared across his mouth. "Mondays are so dull."

Gavin and Luisa interrupt before Eames can reply. They take seats in front of Eames and steal the rest of his jelly. Gavin studies microbiology, Luisa, chemistry. Eames doesn't have a single class with either of them and can't remember for the life of him how they all met, but they're people he enjoys spending time with quite a bit.

"Oi!" Gavin laughs when Eames props his feet up in his lap, doesn't try to move them as he spoons in the last bit of jelly. He makes a face like he can't believe anyone would eat such a thing and swallows thickly.

"You lot goin' to the party tomorrow?" Luisa asks, thumbs through a paper with a red, visible 95 on the front. It reminds Eames he has a paper due in two days on catatonic schizophrenia. 

"Oh, _bollocks_ ," Luisa suddenly hisses. "Don't look," she warns to which Stefania immediately twists her head so quickly her hair sprays out like a fan and hits Eames in the face. "It's _him_."

Eames cranes his neck, sees Sherlock walk through the cafeteria doors, heading straight for the coffee machine.

"Is that Sherlock Holmes?" Stefania asks, nails drumming on Eames's shoulders. "I've heard about him."

"Insufferable tosser," Gavin chimes in. "Acts like he _owns_ the bloody uni."

"He's actually quite cute," Stefania adds, her eyes lazily appreciating Sherlock's tall, lean frame and wildly curly hair. Sherlock looks over at him, his cold, gray eyes penetrating Eames like a tractor beam to the gut.

He leaves with a cup of coffee clutched in his long fingers. Eames hasn't seen him eat anything in close to ten weeks.

"He sits behind me in Atomic Structure and insults Professor White to his face. The man's won a _Nobel_ , for godsakes!" Luisa laments. 

"He's still cute," Stefania finishes lamely. "Don't you share a room with him, Jon?"

" _You_ share a room with the _freak_?"

It's not the first time Sherlock's been called a freak—won't be his last, either.

\--

Eames has a notebook he keeps in his bedside table that he uses to jot down Sherlock's behavior. He'd feel guilty about studying his roommate like a science experiment, but Sherlock already knows his intentions and has taken a red pen to his atrocious spelling errors.

Eames is back from an exam one afternoon when he catches Sherlock on the phone. His entire face is pinched, his lips curled upward in a truly hideous sneer. The grip on the phone suggests he's frustrated and furious—that he's restraining himself the best he can from slamming the phone into the cradle and subsequently smashing the phone into pieces.

Eames sits on his bed, pulls out his heavily revised notebook. 

This is clearly the brother—Mycroft.

It's a cut and dry case of sibling rivalry, something so common and petty it actually bores Eames. Sherlock is all about the exotic—the explosive. There should be a more exciting reason for his dislike, but it's clear his mother favored Mycroft until all Sherlock's love for her turned into bitter resentment for his older brother.

Eames wonders what Sunday dinners must be like.

When Sherlock hangs up, he instantly reaches out for his cigarettes, crumples an empty pack with an expression Eames associates with samurai committing seppuku. 

Eames pushes himself off the edge of his bed—already has a cigarette dangling from his lips. He takes one last inhale before he presses the fag between Sherlock's lips and tosses him his pack.

"Next time,” Eames says as Sherlock sucks in half the nicotine in one haul, "try texting."

\--

Sherlock has vices—thank god.

He smokes the way the medical students do—sucks back cigarette after cigarette like it's a race, like the nicotine won't work if he doesn't chase the smoke with fire. Their entire room smells like the cheap cigarettes from the vending machine—like tobacco and smoldering matches. There isn't a night that goes by that Eames doesn't inhale the smoke, feel the burn in the back of his throat. 

Eames nearly coughed out his lungs the first time he plucked the vending brand smoke from Sherlock's lips and inhaled the cheap tar and sandy ash. He loves it now, bums cigarettes from Sherlock's pack and picks the grains off his tongue after. He's gotten used to the taste, matches the rough smoke with a smooth cognac and laughs when Sherlock makes a face.

The cocaine comes later, in their third year.

Eames blames himself for that one.

\--

He and Sherlock have it out at the end of the first year, with a week left to classes.

Sherlock plays his violin without stopping, the same three scratchy notes over and over until Eames can practically feel his ears bleeding. 

"Either you learn a new bloody song or put the damn violin away," Eames snaps one night, nerves frazzled and fried. Sherlock's schooled face doesn't change as he lowers his bow, inhales like it's a labor of Hercules. 

Sherlock hasn't opened a single textbook all week, has just been smoking and drinking plastic cup after plastic cup of grainy cafeteria coffee. He stares at Eames as if assessing the situation before his posture stiffens and he raises his bow, starts scratching out a new song that grates on Eames's nerves all the same.

Honestly, Eames knows he's the one to blame, but Sherlock's been whittling at him all year. He throws an abnormal psychology book across the room and marches toward Sherlock, rips the bow from his fingers and snaps it over his knee with a satisfied crunch. 

There's a moment where there's complete stillness in the room—where Eames can hear his ragged breathing and sees the anger materializing on Sherlock's face like a paper flower submerged in water. Eames lunges first and Sherlock reacts just as quickly.

They both topple off Sherlock's bed and hit the ground hard, Eames landing on Sherlock's bony body before Sherlock uses a surprising strength to flip him over. Eames shouldn't be surprised Sherlock is so strong—simply supporting the weight of his ego had to be enough to build muscle mass.

Sherlock fights like he was trained and Eames fights like it's a crowded pub. Their blows connect with shoulders and jaws and noses and guts and Eames feels Sherlock's blood dripping on his face, licks it from his lips and spits it back at him, drives his knuckles into Sherlock's thin stomach and grunts when Sherlock pinches a group of nerves that paralyze his left arm. He shouts out every diagnosis he's ever thought suited Sherlock while Sherlock snarls and hits twice as hard.

They roll apart, scramble to regain their footing and end up collapsing in pain on opposite sides of the room. Sherlock is bleeding all over Eames's sheets, Eames leaving bloody fingerprints along Sherlock's blue quilt.

He tries to take a step forward but his knee buckles and he ends up face first on the floor, laughing at how Sherlock Holmes—the skinny little beanpole—bested him in a physical altercation. He rolls onto his back and keeps laughing, groans and moans, but keeps laughing. 

Sherlock looks puzzled for far longer than Eames thinks he'd be comfortable with before he gracelessly falls on his arse and quirks a truly hideous excuse for a smile.

"You scrappy fuck," Eames compliments, licks away the blood trickling down his lips from his nose. When he looks over, Sherlock is pinching the bridge of his nose, his lips split in two places and dripping down his chin. Combined with the pallor of his skin, he looks like a vampire after a fresh kill.

That would imply Sherlock eating at one point, which sends Eames into another fit of laughter. 

Once he's collected himself, he pushes off the floor and shuffles toward Sherlock, extends a cramped, knuckle-chaffed hand to him. Sherlock eyes him warily before realizing he's not going to be standing up any other way and allows Eames to tug him from the floor.

"Sorry about your bow," Eames apologizes once Sherlock's collapses on his bed.

"You're usually a much better liar than that, Jon," Sherlock critiques, quirks his lips like a sneer that's really a smile. 

"Ya," Eames agrees. "I am."


	2. Chapter 2

Through an absolutely ghastly scheduling mishap, they both end up in the same English Literature class for an elective.

Neither are happy to discuss Milton and Malory instead of spending time in their respective labs, but no amount of wheedling and pleading (mostly him) and demanding and protesting (all Sherlock) seem to convince the Director of Studies to let them enroll in another class.

Stefania laughs from deep in her belly when Eames tells her. She cards her fingers through his hair and lets him go down on her to forget his impending scholastic doom.

"But you're brilliant," she says afterward, smokes one of Sherlock's cigarettes. "So what if you have to read a little renaissance literature?"

"He's a horrendous speller," Sherlock answers, hanging in the door. Stefania haphazardly covers her nude body with Eames's sheets and keeps smoking away, no trace of shame whatsoever. Sherlock keeps ignoring their post-coital smoking as he enters the room and takes his seat at his desk.

"How was Barcelona, Stefania?" he asks, voice dripping with the platitude, back stiff. "No tan lines, I see."

"Simply _marvelous_ , Sherlock," she retorts, the shock of Sherlock's deductive skills long ago losing their charm. "You'd've been overjoyed on the beaches. So many _pretty_ things to observe."

Sherlock's back tenses considerably—his hand reaching for his cigarettes. "Will you be here often this semester, Stefania? Or can we expect you only after you've crawled out of bed with your latest conquest?"

"Of course!" Stefania wields. "Where else will I be greeted with such warmth and hospitality?"

"I'm sure you could make do."

"There's where you're wrong, Sherlock." Stefania's eyes are sharp and feral. "I never settle for anything less than the best."

She pushes herself off Eames and collects her clothing while Sherlock pointedly turns away and focuses on his plastic wrapped books. Once Stefania is dressed, she leans across the bed and kisses Eames delicately, a soft smile on her face in lieu of an apology.

"Till tonight, darling! You too, Eames."

Sherlock visibly tenses again and Eames laughs like he's just heard the funniest joke in the world. Stefania and Sherlock are like magnesium and water—explosive and threatening but utterly magnetic. They bicker like siblings, like little children fighting for their favorite toy.

Eames hasn't felt so flattered in a long while.

\--

Several things happen after the first major party of the year.

The first of which, is Eames discovers the joy of an Irish Carbomb. He pounds back pint after pint and shot after shot until his teeth buzz and his vision leaks around the edges. This realization is directly responsible for the rest of his nightly realizations.

The second is coke tastes better and the effects seem to last longer when sniffed off the chest of a particularly lovely lady—especially when said lovely lady is Stefania.

Eames also learns he can't trust said lady after a few rounds of Carbombs and cocaine. His ability to deny her anything is practically nonexistent when sober, and even more lax when drugged and drunk up to his gills. Stefania uses his inebriation to introduce him to an extraordinarily attractive young man—Jude—she met in her political science class.

She says they'll all get along smashingly. 

She wraps her arms around Jude's neck and sends a coquettish grin towards Eames. 

And they're off.

The thrill of the new fuels the hunger in Eames's belly, makes him pant for it. Jude follows Stefania's lead to an unoccupied dorm room—doesn't flinch when she shuts the door behind them and twists the lock shut—seems to already know why Stefania's sunk her claws in.

Eames is the first to move. 

He grabs Jude by his thick hair and yanks their mouths together. It's a stab of a kiss, brutal and hard and over in a moment, but the itch under his skin is ignited like a match to oil. Jude licks his thin lips and has Eames on his back with a rugby tackle that knocks the air out of him.

Stefania laughs at their struggle, stretches out across the closest bed and props her head up in her palm to watch. Neither he nor Jude are putting any fire behind the fight, seem to be enjoying the rutting and hisses more than the dominance. Eames has always been a pleasure seeker in the worst sense of the term, is constantly hunting down new highs to ride and thrills to chase. With Stefania behind him, encouraging, and his cock, hard and pulsing in his pants, Eames realizes very quickly he could get very used to this.

That's how he comes to his last revelation of the night. He's kneeling on some poor bastard's rug, Stefania's polished nails massaging his throat soothingly as Jude thrusts hard and long into his mouth.

Stefania's jerking him off, hisses how _bloody gorgeous_ they both look, often pulls Eames back by the hair and licks the taste of come out of his mouth. It's filthy and degrading but Eames loves the rush, the tight fingers gripping his hair, the thick cock choking him inch by inch. It's exhilarating to let go of the reserves he'd built around him, to not have to worry about the stress on the sexual psyche—to just enjoy the moment.

The last thing he learns is that his gag reflex is practically nonexistent.

\--

Eames places stock in Piaget and his works; believes people only learn right and wrong from practical application and testing and he has always been a firm believer in practice making perfect.

That is, unless it has anything to do with _Le Morte d'Arthur_ and spelling.

"Honestly," Sherlock laments, pen pinched between his fingers as they race across the page. "Did you even use spell check?"

"Who needs a spell check when I have you?" Eames looks up from his Sherlock notepad. He has a few more observations to note after Sebastian—the pompous _git_ —and the rest of his goons verbally insulted Sherlock this morning, leading a deafening chorus of _freak!_ until Sherlock pushed away from the table he was at and headed back to their room.

Eames punched Sebastian until his knuckles bled.

Now he has Sherlock revising his Malory essay without even asking him.

Progress, Eames supposes. One step forward and three steps back.

\--

Sherlock's offered a professor's assistant job for his advanced chemistry class which means he's out of the room most days until midnight.

Eames monopolizes the time as best he can. Nobody is particularly keen on coming back to _the freak_ 's bedroom, even if Eames is the one inviting them there. Sherlock's name—if possible—had gotten worse over the summer break. He's social poison and if it weren't for Eames's reputation and popularity on campus, Eames is sure he'd be regulated a social pariah by association.

Still, Eames has always had a silver tongue when it comes to cajoling, and his smiles always work when his words don't. He's had dozens of girls stretched out and tangled in his smooth sheets and has made a game of how long it takes Sherlock to figure out who'd been screaming Eames's name hours prior.

But like all games, Eames has never settled for second best—always went for the gold and left glittering. 

Eames is really good at getting what he wants, and currently, what he wants is the sandy-haired blond in the well-worn Radiohead t-shirt playing billiards. Eames can't stop staring at his thick thighs when he lines up his shot, how he blows on the end of his cue and scatters blue dust. Eames knows he's absolutely straight, but Stefania's in Rio and Eames is bloody bored out of his skull.

A _straight_ blond challenge is just what Eames needs to stave off the boredom.

As it turns out, it's not that much of a challenge to convince the blond to come back to his room—takes even less to get him out of everything but that _Amnesiac_ t-shirt.

Eames's first blowjob was to Thom belting _Knives Out_. 

He's been partial to the album ever since.

It's been almost two months since Eames has had the luxury of fucking and being fucked in his own bed, which naturally means the night he's got a man on his hands and knees, Sherlock comes home early.

Eames has never been shy about his body—never one for modesty—yet having his curmudgeon, sociopath of a roommate walk in on his starkers, balls deep in the tightest ass he's ever had around his cock, is really no way he intended to finish the night.

Sherlock stares at them for a long while, blondie scrambling beneath Eames to cover up.

"Really, Jon," is Sherlock's only comment, "a philosophy student?"

The mood's broken instantly. Sherlock calmly walks to their tiny bathroom and Eames lets the poor bloke gather up his things and leave.

\--

Eames doesn't remember the first blotch of ink that he scrawls on his skin.

He wakes up on a Saturday with blood smeared on his sheets and a sharp pain across his skin. When his eyes focus, he sees the crisp black ink, the nonsensical letters that seem to spell out something he can't read. The design starts at the base of his shoulder blade and curls around his arm, made his whole left side numb with pain.

Sherlock's brushing his teeth when Eames stumbles inside the bathroom, throws up in the bathtub and uses the showerhead to rinse off the blood from his neck and the bile from his teeth.

"What happened last night?"

Sherlock smiles around mint foam, spits and laughs and Eames passes out.

He might not remember the first, but the second, third and forth he's more or less conscious for, comes out of the tattoo parlor with dragons on his biceps and the Madonna on his shoulder and bold flames that stretch across his right arm.

It's like a Rorschach test in reverse. Eames wakes up from whatever binge working its way out of his system and stares at the new marks on his body—pieces together what type of mindset he was in when he sat in the stiff leather chairs and let the artists break his skin and let black dye seep in. 

By the third year, his torso is almost entirely scratched with blotches of color that form half forgotten memories and spell out hours of joy and regret.

Sherlock doesn't say anything when he crawls into their room smelling of disinfectant and fresh blood, or booze and broken ballpoint pens. Eames has a suspicion that Sherlock likes the tattoos, stopped nagging him about proper room attire after the first burst of color appeared across his back like an oil spill. Now, whenever he walks around shirtless, Sherlock follows his body obsessively, eyes tracing the curves of black, the dips and grooves where virgin skin meets thickly inked art.

Eames uses a fresh page to write down that particular observation, wonders what it will come to mean.

\--

His parents wrote their dissertations on personality disorders.

Studying Sherlock, Eames has no idea how they both managed to make heads of tails of the research they accumulated. Sherlock manifests a significant number of symptoms from every major personality disorder ever recorded.

He doesn't know why he still keeps the journals, why it's so important to track Sherlock's developments and regressions. Sherlock's still a complete mystery to him, but Eames long ago stopped thinking of Sherlock as an easy jump to a PhD and started looking at him as someone frustratingly vulnerable encased in a steel shell.

They're not friends—not exactly.

They are something, though.

\--

All Eames knows, is that she's a minor duchess when he takes her to bed.

She's his type to a tee—blonde with a soft pout of a mouth and brown eyes so dark he can't tell where her pupil and iris end and begin. She wastes no time with formalities and etiquette like the proper birds he waltzed with until the blood on his collar sent them running, strips off her uniform and stares him in the eyes like she's been working her way to him for two years.

Eames hates to disappoint a loyal admirer. 

Afterward, she kisses the hollow of his neck when he slips back into his trousers. She's flushed pink and her hair is knotted from his fingers and her skin is damp with perspiration. He leaves with a final kiss and for the first time since he started Cambridge, feels like he's on a walk of shame.

He only finds out her name when he makes it back to his room and collapses on his bed in a sated, sweaty lump. Sherlock is still awake—as always—with a cigarette burning between his lips.

"Congratulations are in order, I suppose. Jessica McAlastair is a very popular young woman," Sherlock wrinkles his nose, like the idea of sex is below him. Eames has been living with Sherlock for two years now and he's never seen him with anyone—never caught him staring at Stefania when she pranced around the room in her frilly knickers—never heard him wanking—never once seen him look at anyone without some form of contempt in his stare. 

Eames is gagging to find out what kind of person will eventually get Sherlock to look—will leave him just as sticky and sated as Eames is now.

"How'd you know I've been shagging?" Eames crosses his legs at the ankle, uses his arms like a pillow so he can stare at the back of Sherlock's pale neck.

Sherlock turns in his seat, looks insulted, like he's annoyed Eames is playing dumb. "Lipstick, on your collar—Grape Wine by Clinique—Jessica's color, perfume, Chanel no 5—also, Jessica. But _really_ Jonathan, the teeth marks on your neck are just _obscene_."

Eames laughs, licks his lips and smiles wide.

"So you _do_ look at the girls," he says, laughs harder when Sherlock makes a face.

"I merely observe my fellow classmates," he explains primly, as if _observing_ the students is a task rather than a compulsion.

Sherlock's a bloody laugh. He's a narcissistic misanthropist, holds humanity in disdain for their ignorance and laments the fact he's forced to partake in their idiocy. Eames has seen Sherlock's cold eyes watch their peers with disinterest as they mock him, has seen him genuinely ignore their jeers and taunts. He tries so hard to remove himself from his surroundings, yet always interacts with Eames, banters and discusses the finer points of their respective sciences, attempts—poorly, but even so—to wrangle with his obvious social retardation.

Sherlock acts like a person who's never had a friend and is imitating the closest shade of a human as best he can.

Eames looks past the clear psychological trauma and familial issues and sees an awkward boy whose only meaningful relationships are with the cigarettes he burns through like a champion and the books he devours in hours.

And then he has Eames.

The poor bastard's going to end up a serial killer.

\--

Stefania's head is in his lap, his fingers combing through her soft, thick hair. She hasn't straightened it and the waves knot around her ears. She's fresh from the shower and scrubbed a bright pink—looks so beautiful Eames spends an honest minute wondering why he isn't stark raving, maddeningly in love with her.

She looks up through the fringe of her dark eyelashes when Eames stops petting, frowns enough to cause the side of her mouth to wrinkle. 

_Ahh_ , Eames remembers. _That's why_.

\--

Eames will admit he isn't the neatest roommate Sherlock could have been partnered with.

In Eames's defense, he's the only person in the world Sherlock could have been roomed with, so he figures that gives him a little leeway when it comes to his tidiness. It's mostly his clothing that he shucks off the moment classes are done—the socks he toes off and leaves where they land. Sherlock's tripped on his bracers and belts and cursed Eames till he was red in the face.

Sherlock's begun to play his violin—all sharp, heavy notes that feel like knives against Eames's skin. One day, when Eames gets in after an exam, he rips off his blazer and jumper and tosses them on the floor, only to have Sherlock screech against the g chord until Eames finds himself bending to snatch up the discarded articles.

Sherlock immediately sets in on a different note and the song changes dramatically. Eames freezes midway through standing him, can suddenly hear the distant sound of bells and a starving dog, scampering across a floor for it's feeding. 

Skinner and Pavlov would be so proud. 

Eames laughs, whips his clothing at his pillow and faces Sherlock.

"You utter bastard! You've been conditioning me," Eames barks his laughter, aghast and impressed simultaneously. Sherlock almost looks guilty, but recovers with a haughtily quirked eyebrow.

"I thought you would be flattered," Sherlock drawls. "I paid credence to your _soft_ science and empirically proved a theorem to be true."

Eames smirks.

"Funny, you should say that, Sherlock," Eames purrs the words. He reaches into Sherlock's pocket, pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights the tip a few inches away from Sherlock's face. He can smell Sherlock's shampoo mixed with the burst of lighter fluid and flame, sucks in a deep drag so his cheeks pucker.

When he blows out the smoke, Sherlock's eyes drop to his lips. Eames licks them glossy with spit and swears he sees Sherlock's cheeks flush a light pink.

"Because I've been conditioning you, as well."

He's smirking so widely his cheeks hurt and Sherlock composes himself lightening fast and rolls his eyes.

"You're good, Jon," Sherlock says, "but no one's that good."

Eames inhales again, watches as Sherlock's gaze falls square on his mouth like clockwork.

"That's right," Eames smirks. "I'm better."

\--

It started as a drunken dare that morphed into a challenge.

It's the end of semester and every student in the university seemed to be packed into the library, their noses stuffed in dusty books on subjects they'll immediately forget once the exams are finished. 

Eames hasn't been revising his notes or reading up on the last four chapters of his adolescent psychology textbook.

He's been plotting how to nick the Chancellor's vintage, cherry red Corvette. 

He has the plans laid out before him, sketched and erased and plotted until the ash of his cigarettes burned his fingers and Sherlock commanded him to dim the lights. Eames has only caught Sherlock sleeping a handful of times, and never for much longer than it takes for Sherlock to realize he's in the room and spring awake.

Tonight is the annual professor's cocktail—every educator in the university crammed into a hot room with brie and an orchestra and enough champagne to swim in. Eames has no idea how he does it, but he convinces Sherlock to follow him into the heavily monitored parking garage, stealthy like an ancient ninja, and picks the lock with a broken hanger until the lock pops open and they slip inside.

Either the guards were daft or Eames and Sherlock were particularly quick, but they drive away without a single warning light going off. Eames laughs the whole ride away, body tight and throbbing with adrenaline, his head dizzy and so achingly clear he's convinced he's reached nirvana—has found the perfect high.

Crime, he chuckles to himself. He's not even the littlest bit surprised.

\--

Eames drives them to a shaded little nook of a forest. He jumps out of the car, shakes the excess excitement from his bones and lights his cigarette with shaking hands. He wants to scream and cheer and his only audience member has been tight lipped and glowering the entire ride.

"What's crawled up your arse?" Eames snaps, watches as Sherlock gently shuts his door and wipes away the fingerprints from the handle. 

"They'll arrest you for this," Sherlock reminds him, always the boy scout. Eames wants to laugh in his face, cruel and barbed like the jeers that Sebastian hasn't let off, even after the bruises Eames punched into him.

"So you do have morals," Eames says instead, bounces on the balls of his feet, limbs loose and fluid as if he's about to fight. He's packed on muscle since their last year—wonders if he could take Sherlock now or if that impressive strength has somehow increased. 

"Stop analyzing me, Jon," Sherlock spits, pale eyes glowing like silver coins in the moon. "You're not nearly clever enough to get anything right."

In that moment, Sherlock magically becomes a whole lot less complicated. Eames crushes his cigarette under his boots, suddenly sees Sherlock through the smoke and mirrors. 

The revelation that Sherlock Holmes has a heart so large it's physically locked itself away to keep from injury should illuminate like a fresh light bulb, but somehow, Eames knows he's known that all along.

Sherlock doesn't hate people; he's just tired of them.

Eames laughs, tosses Sherlock a cigarette as a peace offering and slides down the side of the Corvette, sips on his flask of bourbon and smokes away until Sherlock begrudgingly sits beside him, face obscured by smoke, his emotions locked tightly away like a virgin in a nunnery. 

Eames has a feeling they'll find themselves sitting on opposite sides of the law one day—revels in the thrill of Sherlock and his unparalleled brilliance chasing him down. 

"Each of us bears his own hell," Eames quotes to Sherlock's labored sigh.

"Fitting." Sherlock resigns, relaxes his posture and accepts he's not getting back to the dorm until Eames is ready to leave. 

The mood is tense and Eames can't stop himself from cracking up.

"They'll arrest me," he laughs, rich and deep. "Why Sherlock, I had no idea you cared."

"Bugger off," Sherlock cusses, immediately clenches up. The silence drums on a few more beats. 

Eames gets cheeky. He pushes himself upward, rests his elbows on his knees, and turns toward Sherlock. 

"Sherlock."

"Yes, Jonathan?"

"Exactly how long have you fancied me?"

It's worth it to see Sherlock Holmes caught off guard, to watch his eyes blink owlishly. Eames laughs with his head tipped back, the image of Sherlock cracking a smile burned in his memory.


	3. Chapter 3

Their last year is insanity.

They've both been approved for their masters and are both offered highly sought-after sponsorships by the heads of their respective faculties. They assist in labs and seminars and are so busy they flicker around each other like bees.

They both have Wednesdays to themselves—neither are energetic enough to leave the room—not even when Stefania and Jude ring Eames with an offer that sends him straight into the bathroom with his free hand fisted around his cock.

Unprompted, one afternoon mid-way through the semester, Sherlock begins to explain the way his mind puzzles out people and situations and his leaps of logic are so painfully brilliant they border on the savant.

Eames, in return, shows Sherlock how he nicked the Chancellor's keys the year prior, shows Sherlock how to lift just about any item on a person, in the same fashion as the Russian conman that used to tend to his horses showed Eames.

Eames starts to notice details that would usually fly under his radar and Sherlock begins nicking things Stefania brings into their room and makes her huff around furiously trying to locate them.

Eames tries not to think about how he's actually going to miss Sherlock when it's all over.

\--

At the beginning of their last semester, they spend six nights in Scotland.

They skip a week's worth of classes and biology seminars and case studies and stay in a posh hotel near the Edinburgh Castle. Eames manages to drag Sherlock to the pubs and has more fun watching him wrinkle his nose in disgust and avoid contact with the drunken patrons than he does with the girls in the plunging tops and the boys that leer at him with promises curled on their lips.

People flock around Sherlock no matter where they go. The birds fawn over him all the more desperately as Sherlock ignores them, and the boys can't take their eyes off his ass. Sherlock is so flustered he becomes more and more surly, his scowl deepening until it cracks his face.

They sightsee while Sherlock picks out random people in the crowd and they make it a game of extrapolating every ounce of information they can until Eames feels as if he's known the perfect strangers his entire life.

They have coffee every morning in a little café that allows them to smoke inside and Eames isn't capable of wiping the shocked expression off his face when he sees Sherlock bite into a buttery maple pastry, fresh from the ovens.

They do spend time apart for their own sanity—Eames choosing to go on long, wandering walks through the city without a map of any sort and finding his way back to the hotel eventually—Sherlock locked away in the hotel room with a new book.

On their fifth day, Eames comes back to the hotel to find Sherlock stretched out across his bed, dozing—a cheap mystery paperback open across his chest. Sherlock's always complained about the science in what he called the "penny awfuls", about the incompetence of the detectives and the inanity of the writer to develop such rudimentary plots. He can always figure out the perpetrator within the first few dozen pages of the novel based on the typeface and the amount of commas used on the fifth page.

But that's not what Eames notices first. Sherlock is wearing a pair of brown shorts.

Seeing Sherlock's pale, knobby knees jostles something inside Eames, makes him pause by the door and stare. He doesn't quite know what's happened, but he does realize it's significant—something worth jotting down in the books he's kept on Sherlock ever since their first meeting.

He looks extraordinarily younger, the hard lines of his pale face smoothed out and peaceful looking—handsome—Eames realizes suddenly. Sherlock is very, very handsome.

"Jonathan," Sherlock mutters, his voice thick and rich like Guinness from the tap in Dublin. He cracks open a pale, gray eye that looks blue in the fluorescent lighting of the room.

Eames places his bag on the chair near his bed, clears his throat. When he turns around, Sherlock is sitting up, book discarded on the floor, his page lost. Sherlock's staring at him with a look of open curiosity, like Eames is a new puzzle put before him instead of an old one he's been working on for three years.

"Yes, Sherlock?" Eames's tone is careful and even. Sherlock's eyes suddenly blaze with amusement.

"Exactly how long have you fancied me?"

Eames laughs and laughs and doesn't seem to stop until they're both back in their Cambridge college.

\--

Stefania knocks on his door late one Thursday night.

Sherlock is holed up in the chemistry lab, determined to prove his professor wrong, and Eames had been sleeping off a three-day cramming session and subsequent adrenaline, coffee, and speed crash.

"Hello, gorgeous," she greets, brushing past Eames and immediately crawls into his warm bed. Eames has always thought his sheets looked best against her skin—he would never kick a beautiful woman out of his bed and certainly wouldn't start with his lovely blonde.

"What've you got there, love?" Eames scratches at his chest, across the flaking skin from the new tattoo on his right pectoral. Stefania motions him forward with a curled finger, shifts and straddles Eames when he makes his way back between the sheets.

"Hush," she warns, as if she could suggest anything he would object to. She scoots closer to his body and kisses him lightly on the tip of his nose before she brandishes the black tube pinched between her fingers. Eames quirks his eyebrow but settles back against his pillows as Stefania uncorks a bright red lipstick.

"But, darling," Eames jokes, "red has never been my color."

"But, _darling_ , red is _my_ color." Stefania nips his ear before her fingers squeeze his jaw in place and she lifts the lipstick to his mouth. Eames obediently pouts as she spends a decadent amount of time applying the oily lipstick along every millimeter of his mouth, as she applies and reapplies until Eames can smell the bitter, chalky scent in the air.

" _Christ_ , Jon," Stefania curses when she's done. The hunger in her eyes is intoxicating, almost as exhilarating as her long fingers working the buttons of her blouse. "You look—"

She leans down to kiss away her hard work and Eames slides her shirt from her shoulders and cups the full swell of her bare breasts. Eames nips her full bottom lip once before leaning into her mouth—helps her guide the waistband of his shorts over the rigid line of his cock.

He slips inside her the same moment their lips connect, both making a high sound in the backs of their throats, Stefania's nails already sinking into his shoulders.

The door suddenly bursts open—Sherlock's triumphant voice echoing.

"I knew—"

And Sherlock freezes, midway across the room, mouth open and lab printouts held up high and victoriously, clenched tightly in his fist. Sherlock's always been able to figure out a scene in less time than it takes the average human to blink, but right now, he's been staring at Stefania and himself for almost a full minute.

Stefania makes no move to cover herself—instead—begins to rock herself on Eames's dick and grabs Eames's cheeks so tightly his lips puff out foolishly. She turns to face Sherlock's gaze with a sultry pout as she swipes her thumb along Eames's lips, smearing the lipstick along his cheek. "Beautiful, isn't he, Sherlock?"

Sherlock spins on his heels and exits the room, the door falling shut behind him. Stefania makes a confused sound, her wide brown eyes narrowing in concentration. She's still screwing herself on Eames and his skin flares too hot, his blood sloshing like thick sludge.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" Eames barks, his words dimmed by a low groan.

"What a peculiar chap. I was so sure he was in love with you, but no, he isn't."

"I could have told you that, Ania."

She pulls him back by the hair, stares into his eyes for a long while before she smiles—something soft and tender.

"No, Jon, you couldn't've."

\--

Sherlock avoids him for the rest of the semester.

Eames has no idea why he feels the need to discuss what had transpired, but the urge sits heavy in his gut like a tumor. No matter how long he stays in their shared dorm, Sherlock does not come back.

After a week of Sherlock's perfect avoidance, Eames stops waiting.

\--

A month before the end of their final semester, Eames finds Stefania sitting on Sherlock's bed. Her hair is drawn back in a neat ponytail and she's clutching the flask she stole from Eames back in the second semester.

"I'm in love with Jude," she confesses, words profound and empty of emotion. Eames has been waiting for this conversation for a year now—ever since she lured them both into a stranger's room and wiggled her way between them.

"I know, pet," Eames draws her into his arms, lets her curl against him. Stefania's always been the self-destructive girl with a death wish—for her to suddenly choose life is the only way Eames could have ever hoped this would end.

"If it were up to me—" she begins, hopelessly. Eames already knows what she means to say: that they were two broken things that made each other whole. "Until I die, it'll be you."

Jude is the luckiest bastard on the planet.

They spend the rest of the night saying goodbye in the same manner they said hello. Stefania still looks gorgeous against shower tiles and they still move like they're the only two people that will ever really know each other.

This time, when Eames walks into the tattoo parlor, he's stone sober, yanks off his shirt as Stefania takes the seat next to him and hitches her halter top above her waist. They both walk out an hour later, matching sentiments in different typefaces.

They kiss for the last time and part ways.

Stefania goes back to Jude and Eames goes back to the dorm, smells the fading traces of Sherlock's cigarettes and knows this is the end of a chapter. He rips off the tape on his side, scratches the inflamed skin.

 _till i die sw_.

From his angle, Stefania's initials almost resemble Sherlock's.

\--

His masters and PhD pass him by in a blur.

Eames is only vaguely sober for most of it.

He spends as much time in Cyprus and Amsterdam as he does Cambridge—hands in the thesis he'd completed when he accepted the diploma for his undergrad, defends his dissertation with enough coke in his system to kill a lion and is awarded his doctorate in psychology with the worst hangover he'll ever have.

After all that—years of studies and exams and bitter, violent hate—Eames doesn't feel any different, any smarter, any wiser than he did walking in. Except, he supposes, there are now three little letters tacked onto his name that will follow him for the rest of his life.

\--

Eames blows his trust fund in Belize and nicks and barters and sells fake prescriptions for a year to earn enough for a ticket to Cairo.

It's a scrape of a way to make a living, but the oppressing heat and constant danger become the only way Eames can get through the day. Thrill seekers tend not to have an exceptionally long life, but at least they're never dull.

Through word of mouth, when Eames steps off the plane, three men with guns belted to their side discreetly pull him away and introduce him to the mercenary he ends up forging work and travel visas for. He quickly gains a reputation, enjoys the work in the way people enjoy tedious hobbies, and challenges himself to bigger works—bonds and stocks.

Three years down the line, Eames discovers he has a natural talent for art forgery and makes thousands of dollars copying the greats.

He still drinks and gambles and partakes in all manners of bodily comforts, and the further and further he sinks into excess, the easier it becomes to forget how he bollockses up everything.

\--

"Doctor Eames." The voice is coming from above him. Eames blinks past the alcohol in his blood, the whiskey still staining his mouth and blurring his vision. Judging by the smell alone, Eames passed out in another alley—most likely after a solid brawl that split his lip and made a molar wiggle in his jaw.

Eames winces when he looks up and sees sunlight, sees a rotund man with slicked back, dark blond hair and a smart, navy suit. "Doctor Eames," he repeats, and there's something in his voice that's achingly familiar—a snide, regal tone—that brings Eames right back to his first week of uni.

Mycroft Holmes. Eames always wondered if he'd get to meet Sherlock's brother.

Eames tells him as much, is certain it mostly comes out as a drunken, pained slur.

"If you're quite finish _amusing_ yourself to death," Mycroft contempt is palpable, "I have a job for you."

Eames tells him to fuck off.

The sudden, hard blow to his head from Mycroft's walking stick sends him straight back to unconsciousness.

\--

The next time he wakes, Eames is hunched awkwardly in a large Jacuzzi tub, a freezing blast of water rinsing off the smell of three-day-old garbage, bile and sweat.

He spins the nozzles until the water is blissfully scalding and rips off his drenched clothing, lets the steam and heat work away the kinks in his muscles and joints.

Mycroft is eating a salad in the dining area of the suite when Eames rejoins him, still toweling himself off.

"A diet, Mycroft?" Eames inquires to Mycroft's dismay. He wonders if he got that look from Sherlock or if it was the other way around.

"I wasn't aware you were a comedian, Doctor." Mycroft bites into a cucumber slice. "Now, about that job," he begins where he left off, acts as if Eames has already accepted his offer.

If Eames has learned anything in his life, it's that you'd best not get on the bad side of a Holmes.

\--

Eames's entire doctorate is based on Sherlock Holmes and the behavioral disorders of a narcissist slowly trying to break free of the cocoon of his own self-importance. It was a complex paper to write, but Sherlock is the most complex man Eames has ever met.

Mycroft tells him he's been vetted through the thousands of doctoral candidates to participate in a confidential military experiment involving dreams and dream manipulation.

Eames's mother used to read him Jung as if his theories were bedtime stories.

Still, he arrives at the destination Mycroft tells him at the time he's supposed to be there and meets two women and two men who all hold degrees in various fields of psychology.

Eames knows the only reason his name came up was because he insinuated that Mycroft's blinding ignorance was the root of all of Sherlock's many, many issues.

\--

It's called P.A.S.I.V.

With a burst of Somnacin, Eames closes his eyes in reality and opens them in a perfectly constructed dream, surrounded by his fellow test subjects.

Mycroft tells them that P.A.S.I.V is a joint military project with the United States and that he was training them to use their backgrounds to dissect and analyze the subconscious of their Mark; tells them that with concentration and skill, they could manipulate their dream forms into Jung's archetypes.

Eames has always had a vivid imagination, picks it up incredibly quickly. He imagines all the delicate curves and smoothness of a woman's body, casts the thought outward and steps into it like a suit. Within a month, he's gotten so good at copying the bodies and mannerisms of his peers that the two men quit the project and cite Eames as the reason.

Mycroft isn't bothered. He grins in the body of his dream avatar, and commands Eames to transform into a different body at the snap of his fingers.

It's like mental jumping jacks or pushups, his dream avatar's skin always feeling looser than his physical body. It becomes disconcerting after a while to wake up from a chemically induced dream and feel like you're wearing the wrong body. Eames has panicked more than once when he could no longer project outwards and step into a new shell he could disappear into a crowd with.

\--

After three months of training, Mycroft merrily announces that they've passed their training and are now officially MI6 Forgers.

For the last five years, Eames has been called many, many things—a thief, a scoundrel, a drunk, a bastard—every single one true.

There are worse things to be called, he supposes.

\--

Eames is awarded a contract with the American government. 

He's whisked off to Langley and only starts to ask questions after they've blindfolded him and slapped him in a pair of cuffs that cut off the blood in his wrists.

When the cuffs are unlocked and the cloth removed from his eyes, Eames finds himself in the presence of the single most attractive creature he's ever seen.

"Staff Sergeant Arthur Mendelssohn," Arthur greets with a crisp salute. "Welcome to Langley, Doctor Eames."

Arthur's almost the antithesis to everything Eames has ever been attracted to, but the coil of lust that churns in Eames's chest outstrips the feeling of any arousal Eames can ever recall feeling. Arthur's wire thin with light brown eyes and dark, cropped hair. His features are angular but his face is narrow and his skin is faintly pink from the sun and his fatigues cling to his high, pert ass in ways that must drive the rest of his squad mental—that has Eames astonishingly hard.

"Has anyone ever told you your ass looks fantastic in that uniform," Eames flirts outrageously, pours all the smoke and gravel he can into his voice.

Arthur's steady gait falters for a step, his shoulders fractionally more tense.

"I actually prefer more tailored clothing," he fires back with an ease that shows how often he must get heckled by bigger men with lower ranks.

"I actually would prefer you in no clothing at all," Eames purrs, delights in the flush high on Arthur's neck.

Arthur remains stone silent as he leads him to his destination, stands firm and tall and straight as he holds open the door. Eames wants to dissolve Arthur's perfect posture with a steady application of his mouth.

Just as he's entering the room, he feels the tip of his shoe connect with something hard and he loses his balance comically, smashes face-first into the ground and whacks his nose on the polished marble floor.

He sees Arthur delicately drawing back his polished boot, takes in the satisfied, juvenile smile on his handsome face.

"Doctor Eames," he says, tone just skating the edges of sincere. "You really should be more careful." 

The cheeky fucker tripped him but Eames counts it as a victory when he catches Arthur's eyes drifting to his ass as he pushes himself up.

\--

Eames hasn't heard Mycroft's voice in close to three years.

"I won't keep you," Mycroft says in lieu of a greeting. Eames makes a sound of acknowledgment, can't be bothered to focus on Mycroft's haughty tone when he's got Arthur in sight, rolling up the cuffs on his pressed, white Oxford. Eames has had to grease a lot of wheels and promise some preposterous things to keep working with him.

Arthur isn't even aware Eames is watching him as he reveals inch after inch of his pale, tightly muscled arms. It's a slow tease and it's driving Eames's dick insane.

"We have a job for you in London and can pay you one million pounds."

"Top secret, is it, Mycroft?" Eames teases, lets the words roll in his mouth like honey. Arthur's staring at him now, left eyebrow quirked. Eames wonders if he has any idea his features wrinkle adorably when he does that—that he loses ten years off his face when he's curious.

"Highly," Mycroft sighs into Eames's ear, a perfect mirror of the one he'd heard countless times from Sherlock. "Be at Gatwick tonight, and for _god_ ‘s sake, show some discretion."

Eames hangs up first, slips his mobile into his jacket. He walks over to Arthur, licks his lips. "How'd you like to make a million pounds, pet?"

Arthur does a very good job at controlling his exquisite face. "If it's anything like your last offer, I'll decline in favor of keeping my clothes on."

"Fully clothed," Eames assures. "But it would be a truly lovely perk if that point were negotiable."

"Where?" Arthur ignores his flirtations and pulls out his leather-bound notepad, flips to a clean page.

"London. Top Secret. Very exclusive." Eames already knows he's got Arthur on the hook, licks his lips and resists rubbing his hands together.

He wonders what it'll take to get Mycroft to put them up in a single room with a king-sized bed and a bottle of chilled champagne.

He'd gladly forgo the paycheck if Mycroft could arrange that.

"We'll need a chemist," Arthur points out.

Eames knows just the one.

\--

Sherlock's blog is incredibly popular. He has his email listed in the contacts section and it takes Arthur less than a minute to produce an address.

They pull up to Baker Street just in time to see a cab tearing away from two figures in scarves and coats. It's been almost ten years, but Eames would recognize the mop of Sherlock's curls anywhere.

"Oi! Holmes!" he shouts, rips open the door and clamors onto the street. Sherlock spins around, coattails flying.

"Jonathan!" Sherlock sounds shocked—almost pleasant.

"Jonathan?" Arthur's voice is tense. Eames knows Arthur has a page of (almost) all his aliases, knows Jonathan isn't a single one of them.

"Cheating on me already, Holmes? You cad," Eames mocks, eyes running up the stocky build of Sherlock's companion. Arthur's entire demeanor falters for a flicker of a moment. Eames catches that fetching break in character, can't stop the smile that splits his face. Arthur, for that brief slip, looked confused and just the slightest bit jealous.

Sherlock's eyes are bright and attentive, more blue than gray now, the skin that was once pinched and drawn around his mouth and eyes now lax and at ease. His lips flicker upward, so quickly Eames barely catches it.

"John Watson." The shorter man at Sherlock's side introduces pleasantly, seems confused that anyone would willingly walk up to Sherlock Holmes in the middle of the day and strike up a nice conversation.

Eames is impressed Sherlock's managed to snag a doctor.

"Arthur," Eames gestures over his shoulder and can feel Arthur's scowl across the back of his neck.

"Are you a colleague of Sherlock's?" John asks, his soft features tightening in concern.

"A friend," Eames clarifies.

"A _colleague_ ," Sherlock amends quickly. He finally glances over at Arthur, his eyes hurriedly devouring the sharp lines of Arthur's suit, the briefcase in his hand.

The possessive flair that usually boils in Eames's gut when others openly gape at Arthur doesn't even stir. Sherlock might be looking at Arthur, but his gaze is strapped firmly to the rumpled man at Arthur's side. Eames has always wanted to know how Sherlock could do that, be looking at everything in a room and never focusing on anything.

That is, he notes, until John Watson.

\--

Eames always knew Sherlock would have a tipping point—that eventually, someone would come along and push all his complicated buttons in the right order and unlock the human trapped deep within the walls of his own design.

Eames really isn't shocked that John's managed to inadvertently capture Sherlock's interest. His smile is warm and his eyes are completely honest. He's pathetically easy to read—an open book that Eames has already thumbed through and memorized every last inch of. He wonders how easily he could slip into John's skin; wonders if Sherlock would ever be able to tell the difference.

If figuring out John Watson came easily to Eames, then Sherlock must have had John dissected in seconds. It's the fact that Sherlock kept John close, even after there were no secrets left to discover, that told more of John's personality than Sherlock's skill. John provided a stability Eames knew he could never occupy, yet was spontaneous enough to keep Sherlock guessing.

"Interesting company you're keeping these days, Holmes."

"No more than yours, Jonathan," comes Sherlock's dry reply.

"He's a soldier," Eames notes.

"And a doctor," Sherlock adds. He glances back at Arthur, laces his fingers together. "He's an engineer."

"And a soldier," Eames laughs as he lights a cigarette, blows out the heavy smoke that scratches down his throat and prickles his lungs.

Sherlock's fingers twitch like he wants to reach out and take a puff. Eames smirks around a mouthful of smoke, inhales and watches Sherlock's eyes drop to his mouth before flickering back to John, quick as a whip. Eames can see the sticky edge of the nicotine patch on his forearm—wonders if it was John's disapproving stares or a sudden cognizance of his mortality that's gotten him to quit. 

Eames is willing to bet the poker chip in his pocket it's the former.

"Arthur's a far cry from your usual type," Sherlock says casually, wrinkles his nose when Eames blows smoke in his face.

"What gave it away?" Eames asks, flicks the ash from his cigarette into the muggy air. There's no lipstick on his collar this time, no flowery, sticky sweet perfume. He's pressed and proper and wearing his strong aftershave—knows from a torturous plane ride that Arthur smells like Burberry cologne and a shampoo that costs ten pounds a bottle.

Sherlock's lips quirk to the side—that awful excuse for a smile of his—and says nothing.

Eames laughs, claps Sherlock heavily on the shoulder. "Well played, Holmes."

Sherlock's already staring at John, his body leaning forward like it's trying to get back to John's side. Sherlock's voice carries a faint hint of ownership—of hunger—when he talks about John. His pride radiates as if he were Pygmalion and John was his carefully crafted marble.

At last, Eames finally knows what kind of person the great Sherlock Holmes would fall for.

Very briefly, Eames wonders if Sherlock's level of possessiveness is dangerous. For all Sherlock's progress, he's still a narcissistic sociopath with an extensive background in criminology and government connections ready to cover up any _incidents_ that might occur.

But when John looks at Sherlock, adoration and protective fury twists in his bright blue eyes. For all his open smiles and genuine laughs, Eames can tell John is brilliant and sharp and just as dangerous as Arthur.

Eames smiles to himself.

"Quite the odd lot we make, yeah?" He's openly appreciating Arthur, fights back the arousal when Arthur's heavy, heated gaze catches his and holds it.

Eames wonders how much cajoling it would take to convince Sherlock to bunk with John and lend Arthur and him his bed for the night.

Sharing a room.

For old times' sake.


End file.
